"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing." (Psalm 100:1-2)

Serving the Streetsville and Meadowvale communities since 1836.

Phoenix Organ Installation Diary at Streetsville United

At a special congregational meeting held December 15, 2002 the congregation of Streetsville United Church approved the purchase and installation of a Phoenix PD-351 Digital Organ to replace its current Keates Pipe Organ with some components dating back to 1920. This diary will attempt to log the progress of the organ's construction and installation during the spring of 2003.

Monday, April 07, 2003

Sanctuary Preparations

Today was largely spent cleaning up final items remaining in the pipe chambers, removing the floor of the previous organ pit in preparation for its expansion, cutting out the pipe chamber openings to allow better sound distribution from the new speakers and installation of the first speaker shelf. The first involved removal of one final large windchest and endless pulling of various wires and cables from the former organ. We got good news on removing the floor of the organ pit; we will be able to make the new floor as deep as we had wished while making allowances for new wiring and outlets; also there are no obstructions to brining the speaker cables through the floor. But I think we also uncovered construction junk from previous projects; if the hand forged square nails are any indication, some may go back to the original 1876 construction. This would be consistent with construction junk -- broken bricks, etc. -- we found stashed inside the outside buttresses and brickwork openings in 1994 when we had to carry out major renovations on the church brickwork.

It now appears that, due to all our inclement weather, the new organ console will arrive Friday morning but this still does not put us off schedule. In the interim we will complete the speaker shelf installations and the expanded floor area of the new organ's pit. We are targeting to have the sanctuary in good shape for a memorial service on Saturday; this means we will not complete a new wall for the organ pit/choir loft until next week. Tomorrow involves completing the electrical arrangements.

We have announced availability of over 500 pipes associated with 8+ standard pipe ranks and have received some initial indications of interest. Thanks to Gary Clipperton, Les Cunningham, Bernie Brennenstuhl and Dave Faulkner for their assistance today.
Posted 4/07/2003 09:47:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney